The Directions of KOffice

Speaker: Inge Wallin

KOffice is a very old project in KDE. One year ago, KOffice released its 2.0 version, which was a complete rewrite using Qt 4 and KDE 4 technologies. The quality was approximate to the quality of KDE 4.0, which means a good technology platform but not really usable for daily work. Since then KOffice has matured considerably and is on the verge of being usable by normal users. It has been adapted by Nokia to be an office viewer on their mobile Maemo based device, the N900.

This talk will describe what is happening right now in KOffice, and the many directions that it's moving in at the same time. Among other things, we will show:
- Running KOffice on different platforms like Windows or Maemo (MeeGo)
- Creating new user interfaces for koffice applications for specialized needs like mobile devices or netbooks.
- How to use KOffice building blocks to build in office features into other applications.
- Advanced handling of ODF metadata (with examples from the dutch government)
- Advanced filter architecture for reading and writing other file formats.
- How we work with real users to create an end user ready product that people will want to use.
- How to create new plug-ins for KOffice that will integrate other data sources, data types and even online services like the social desktop.
- How to use the building blocks of KOffice to create new applications.